Closing the Seder With Something New

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Melissa Clark takes the best parts of a French macaron and an American macaroon and creates a sweet sandwich cookie for Passover.Published OnApril 4, 2014CreditImage by Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Here’s the secret to the best Passover desserts: stick to recipes that never relied on flour to begin with. Why make a chocolate cake with matzo flour when a flourless chocolate torte is going to be so much better anyway? This is why flourless tortes, candies and nut- or coconut-based cookies are the usual end to many a Seder.

It is a sound strategy, though it does get old unless you mix things up. So every year, I tweak a little here and there.

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Matzo toffee with candied ginger.CreditAndrew Scrivani for The New York Times

The greatest break from tradition that I have tried may be macarons. When I was a kid, chocolate Passover macaroons were coconut-based lumps fished out of a can.

These macarons, fashioned after the classic French almond confection, are so intensely chocolaty you won’t miss the other “o.”

The batter is pretty easy to make as long as you’ve got an electric mixer to do the beating. Just make sure to seek out kosher-for-Passover confectioners’ sugar, or make your own. (Regular confectioners’ sugar contains cornstarch, which many observant Jews avoid during the holiday.) After baking, I sandwich the macarons with caramel, then drizzle with bittersweet chocolate. When you bite into one, the chewy, fudgy exterior quickly meets the brittle crunchy caramel layer, making these seem like a cross between a cookie and a candy. But the rich little macarons can stand alone, unfilled and undrizzled, or you could pair them with coconut sorbet for a deconstructed Mounds-bar effect.

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Hazelnut citrus torte.CreditAndrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Or you could do a torte that leaves out the chocolate in favor of plenty of citrus. Although you could use any nut here, I chose hazelnuts for their sweet earthiness. I also added a little quinoa flour, which, thanks to the bounty of gluten-free ingredients at my local supermarket, was easily available (as were the almond and hazelnut flours). And quinoa’s forthright, lightly smoky taste was a good match with the hazelnuts.

Last but certainly not least is a different take on matzo toffee. This classic Passover candy is based on one made with saltines, with matzo standing in for the chametz crackers. (Chametz is the Hebrew word for any leavened food that observant Jews can’t eat on Passover, including wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt, and their flours.) I added ginger juice and candied ginger to zip things up. Or leave them out and sprinkle the top with cacao nibs and sea salt, as David Lebovitz suggests on his blog.

But whatever you do, you should also serve those neon-colored, kosher-for-Passover gummy fruit slices. Some things are just better left as they are.